


The Thing That Lies Below

by dangerousjade



Category: The Shape of Water (2017)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Backstory, Blood, Flashbacks, Gen, Horror, Lovecraftian, Magical Realism, Military
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-05 01:56:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15853860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dangerousjade/pseuds/dangerousjade
Summary: The Asset might have been Occam’s most sensitive project, but to General Hoyt it was just another creature in a long line of many.





	The Thing That Lies Below

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tyellas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas/gifts).



> “The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.” – H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu

1962

Strickland had recovered the Fish Man, fabled Gill God of the Amazon.  Hoyt’s grip on the telephone handset tightened as Strickland confirmed it, his disjointed voice reaching Hoyt’s ear from a thousand miles away.  Even in Hoyt’s air-conditioned office in D.C, where an immaculately coiffed secretary typed away at a mahogany desk, the heat of the jungle seemed to waft from Strickland’s every word. 

“The creature—caught—we’re—at Belem—“ 

Static crackled along the telephone line as Strickland’s voice faded in and out.  Hoyt listened to the rest of Strickland’s rambling with half an ear.  The man’s words were shaky and his responses robotic.  If Strickland was here in the flesh, his eyes would have a vacant, thousand-yard stare, Hoyt was sure of it.  The result of too many days in the jungle, or maybe the creature itself had some sort of power to mess with a man’s mind.  Its very existence might be enough to drive anyone mad. 

Hoyt cut him off.  “You did a damn fine job.  Transport it to civilization and we’ll send a team to come and bring you stateside.”

There was an indecipherable mumbling and a distinct crunching sound, like grinding rocks.  Hoyt frowned.  “What was that sound, son?  Everything under control?”      

“Nothing, just--just eating candy, sir.”  The answer was stammered, embarrassed.  “Thank you—General—sir--”

“You’ve done your country proud, soldier.  Now, I need you to do one more thing for me: once you’re back in America, I need you to escort this creature to Baltimore.  We have a secure facility that can house it while our scientists can figure out what makes it tick.  Can you do that, son?” 

“Ye-yes.  Yessir, General Hoyt.”    

“Telephone me once you reach Sao Paulo and we’ll relay the next set of instructions.” 

_I’ll be damned, the son of a gun actually pulled it off_ , Hoyt mused as he hung up the telephone.

“Martha, crack open the champagne, we reeled ourselves in a big one,” he boomed to his secretary, who offered a smile of congratulations. 

He had almost given up hope after six months without a word from Strickland.  Both Strickland and the Asset would have been long forgotten, marked off of the list of classified cases that got tossed onto his desk due to his reputation with the strange and unnatural.  Most were hoaxes: UFOs that were a trick of the light, or psychic kids that were nothing more than scam artists bilking tourists out of their pocket change.  But when he caught the genuine article, it made every one of those failed attempts worth it.  The men talked behind his back, whispering about his odd missions and heavy-handed methods, but that was to be expected.  His rank ensured they didn’t dare say it to his face. 

This was the first time Strickland, the army man, had ever seen anything quite like this.  Hoyt had used him for wet works missions in the past, ever since Korea.  Ruthless and reliable, he was the perfect specimen of American dependability.  Whatever he had experienced in the Amazon had taken a chunk out of him.  But he got results, and that’s all that mattered.  A bonafide monster, now in American custody…Hoyt marveled at the thought.     

The things Hoyt had witnessed over the years, the terrors he had wrenched from every damn hellhole he could find on God’s green Earth…this might have been Strickland’s first rodeo, but it sure as hell wasn’t Hoyt’s.

 

* * *

 1946

Once upon a time in Bavaria, at the foothills of the German Alps, there lay a small, secluded village.  Before the war it was a tourist destination, a picturesque locale surrounded by thick forest, where the tops of the mountains were covered in snow.  There was a beautiful blue lake nearby.  Hoyt had a postcard of the place, a black and white photograph taken from high up showing the village and the lake, with the mountains as the backdrop.  Now the village was little more than rubble, bombed into oblivion by an Allied air raid late in the war.  Survivors had returned and commenced rebuilding their houses, women and old men shifting through the bricks and ruins of their lives. 

Hoyt was a Captain then, assigned to investigate the disappearance of a pilot that had crash-landed next to the lake.  The pilot, Lieutenant Ross, had survived, and had radioed for help from his ruined plane.  The location was only about an hour away from the village; the whole operation should have taken no longer than an afternoon.  A rescue team was dispatched into the forest.  Days passed, and no one returned.  Another team was sent in, and they disappeared as well.  It was as though the forest was a hungry maw that had swallowed them whole. Hoyt was called to try to rectify the situation.  Even then, the brass knew he was the man to get results.    

He set up a temporary camp in one of the only buildings still standing, an ancient church with moss covered stones and a cracked bell that no longer rung.  The day he arrived, a man emerged from the forest, screaming that everyone was dead, that the lake had consumed them all.  He was a local by the name of Segner, a middle-aged man with graying hair and a long, weathered face.  He was talking nonsense, pure craziness pouring out of him like a cracked jug. 

Hoyt suspected he was concealing a more nefarious act, perhaps an ambush on the rescue team, perpetrated by guerilla Nazis or Wehrmacht that wanted to keep fighting.  Maybe the soldiers had stumbled upon Soviets infiltrating the area.  Segner might have been working for them, got cold feet or been overwhelmed with guilt, and escaped after the grisly murders had been committed.  Whatever his involvement, Hoyt was sure he was culpable of something.  He had the MPs kick him around a bit.  Maybe that would sober him up, motivate him to start talking about what really happened.    

Segner was thrown into the solitary stone mausoleum behind the church, with an MP standing guard in front.  Hoyt went to see him that night.  He carried an old gas lamp that cast long shadows as he peered around the mausoleum’s interior.  Segner was slouched on the floor, leaning against the stone slab of an ancient family’s tomb.  His face was swollen and covered in splotches of purple and his wrists were handcuffed in front of him.  The MP assured Hoyt that Segner knew English, that this was the first time he had stopped muttering to himself about monsters in the lake.  Hoyt knelt down beside him, studying his damaged features.

“Now that you’ve had some time to think, you got something you want to tell me? Do you have information about what happened to the men that we sent into the forest?”  Hoyt kept his tone gentle, fatherly.  Segner lifted his head slowly and stared at him with one blue eye, the other swollen shut.

“Your men are dead.  They are dead because of the _Thing_ that Lies Below.”  His voice was slightly hoarse and his words accented. 

“That’s what you were hollerin’ before.  What the hell is this ‘thing’ you keep talking about?”  Hoyt’s patience was fraying.      

“It is awake in the lake.  Not man or animal, it is a…being.  Once long ago, it was called a god.  For years the _Thing_ slept, but when the bombs fell it awoke again.” 

Hoyt had to laugh.  Hogwash, nothing but insanity mingled with folk superstition.   “What do you think this is, Mr. Segner, some kind of creature movie?  Is Bela Lugosi going to jump out at me from the crypt?” 

Segner didn’t answer.  His already gaunt face seemed to hollow out, and his swollen eye opened and widened, boring into Hoyt’s skull with a piercing intensity that sent a chill down his spine. 

“ _We_ are expecting you, Captain Hoyt.”  The voice was no longer accented.  The hoarseness was replaced by a throaty depth, as though something buried deep down in Segner’s throat was answering.  “Come to us, for _We_ are waiting for you.” 

Hoyt jerked back, the lamp swinging and shadows jumping about, casting ominous, unsettling outlines on Segner’s face.  Segner blinked, his swollen eye shutting closed again.  He slumped, as though exhausted by an extraordinary effort.       

Hoyt stumbled out of the crypt and into the dark night, his heart pounding in his chest.  He was sure of only one thing: he had to go to the lake. 

 

* * *

1962

Fleming was squirrely, a timid 4-F who had climbed the bureaucratic ladder by licking every boot he came across.  Yellow as mustard but precise, dependable, and above all, respectful of authority.  The moment Hoyt stepped across the threshold of Occam, Fleming had pounced on him, shaking his hand vigorously and prattling on with a mixture of nervousness and excitement.  They hopped aboard a cart to take them to the control center and Fleming continued without pausing. 

“We run a top-notch facility, sir, top notch!  Mr. Strickland has been exemplary despite his—“ Fleming faltered.  “--Er, despite the unfortunate circumstances—“ 

“Spit it out son, he got two fingers chewed off by a monster.”   

Fleming paled and adjusted his glasses shakily.  “Yes sir.  Ghastly business!  There is nothing to worry about though, the Asset was completely contained.  I can assure you there will be no incidents going forward, we have added security measures in place to prevent it.” 

“I know, I’ve read your reports.”  A lie, but it made Fleming beam with pride.  He had been sending Hoyt progress reports every day on various minutiae, which Hoyt had promptly ignored.  It was good enough to have Martha paraphrase them during his morning coffee.  The only documents he had personally reviewed were the scientific papers describing the creature in detail, speculating upon its origins.  The descriptions were of limited value, veering off into avenues that had no practical application.  Despite the fancy words and complicated scientific jargon, Hoyt could see through the bullshit: the scientists didn’t know squat about what this thing was.

“Please sir, right this way.  Mr. Strickland just needs a little more time to prepare the Asset for your inspection.”  The cart halted and Fleming herded him upstairs into the security office overlooking the facility’s control center.  There was a red-haired secretary typing at her desk and a man in a lab coat in the corner, looking through a manila folder filled with X-rays and figures.  Hoyt paused in front of the glass windows of the office, watching the workers downstairs scurry about their tasks.      

“Damn fine view you’ve got here.”  He felt like a benevolent God looking down upon creation.  Fleming’s voice cut though his pleasant musing, grating like sandpaper. 

“General Hoyt?  This is Dr. Robert Hoffstetler, the lead scientist on this project.  I’ve been including his findings in my reports.”  The man in the lab coat stepped forward, extending his hand.   

“Nice to finally meet you in the flesh, son.”   He was more diminutive than Hoyt expected, cutting an unassuming figure in his suit and white lab coat.  His handshake was firm but perfunctory, with no real grip strength.  Not surprising for a scientist.  “So what do you make of the Asset?” 

Hoffstetler’s mouth briefly curled into a smile that he quickly suppressed, though he couldn’t hide the unmistakable glimmer of excitement in his eyes.  “I’ve seen nothing like it before.  It might be the most remarkable finding of the 20th century.”

Hoyt smirked.  If only he knew that there were more remarkable things on this Earth, some of which were already in the custody of the U.S. government.    

Once Strickland gave them the go-ahead, they all climbed aboard another cart and drove through Occam’s concrete halls.  The ride to T-4 was mercifully quiet, with Fleming finally running out of idle chatter and Hoffstetler busying himself with papers filled with scientific gibberish.  Strickland greeted him once he entered and Hoyt finally got his first glimpse of the Asset.    

He felt a sinking feeling of disappointment in the pit of his stomach as he gazed at it, like the feeling of a plane taking a sudden dive.  He had seen photographs, knew the Asset wasn’t that _Thing_ , wasn’t that creature he had seen all those years ago, but he had expected it to feel like _It_.  That feeling of awe and dread and terror all mingled together into an all-encompassing mass.  Instead it was an oversized guppy, gasping and bleeding on the floor.  Nothing more than a pitiful wild animal.

 

* * *

1946

Hoyt commandeered a jeep and drove alone on the dirt road leading to the lake.  He parked once the road disappeared, dissolving into dense forest, and continued on foot into the shadow of the trees. 

As he walked, he spotted shards of the downed plane hanging in the branches and dangling from the treetops.  He passed a hunk of engine embedded in the dirt. There were no bodies or any other indications of the pilot or the rescue teams.  As Hoyt continued, a sense of dread gathered in the back of his mind, building with each step.  It took him a moment to pinpoint why: it was the silence. 

Hoyt was no stranger to nature, having spent many nights camping as a boy.  Even in the dead of night, he could remember hearing the sound of crickets, or coyotes howling, or the wind rustling the branches of the trees.  There was no place in the world that was totally silent.  No place except this forest.  Hoyt wondered momentarily if he had gone deaf, but his footsteps still made sound.  Every step was loud, like a firecracker exploding in an abyss.  It made him place his foot down with care, trying not to disturb the dry leaves under his feet, or else the crunch would make his ears ring.                    

He reached the lake, the crystal clear blue water lapping at a rocky shoreline.  The landscape was alien, the rocks too dark and shiny for a serene Bavarian lake.  Some of the rocks were as tall as trees, jutting to the sky like obelisks.  A man was propped against one of the largest rocks.  As Hoyt approached, he could make out the man’s fierce expression, his hair wild and unkempt and his face covered with dried blood.  His flight suit was shredded, and his leg was sitting at an odd angle.  Hoyt struggled to remember the pilot’s name, the whispers in his head blocking any semblance of thought.  Whispers, when had the whispers begun?  They were in a strange language, not English or German or any human language, Hoyt was sure of it. 

Ross, that was the pilot, Ross.  Hoyt yelled the name out loud even though he was only a foot away from the man, just so he could be heard over the sound of the whispers.  “Lieutenant Ross?  What the hell is happening here?”     

Ross’s face twisted into a wide smile, incongruous on his bloodied face.  “You’re here, Captain, you’re here!  _It_ said you’d be here, _It_ kept me alive so we could both see!  Look, Look!”  Ross gestured wildly toward the water.  Hoyt froze.        

The lake was writhing.

The surface of the lake was marred, not with the steady rhythm of waves but with the movement of snakes tangling and struggling.  The water seemed to churn and glow, illuminated by a light that seemed to emanate from the depths of the lake.  The light was coming closer and closer to the surface.  The water was frothing as _It_ emerged.  

Hoyt’s head was pounding.  He was laughing.  His laughter joined Ross’s, and they howled together as the droning whisper became a roar. 

 

* * *

1962 

Hoffstetler was desperate, chasing after Hoyt even after he had given his final orders for the Asset to be euthanized and autopsied.  The scientist’s persistence irritated Hoyt.  Civilians didn’t understand the proper chain of command, and had to constantly be treated like disobedient children.  Hoyt was on his way out, the entrance to Occam in his line of sight when the scientist barreled toward him, trying to block his exit.  Normally he wouldn’t humor such insubordination, but he could admire Hoffstetler’s single-minded determination.  He herded the scientist into an empty room so they could talk privately.  Hoyt crossed his arms while the scientist huffed, trying to catch his breath.   

“All right, son, what else do you have to say?  You already made your case, and I already made a decision.” 

“Please sir, I am begging you to reconsider.  This creature is extraordinary, it would be a waste to vivisect it when we can learn so much more!” 

_Extraordinary_.  Hoyt scoffed.  All of them – the Asset, Strickland, Hoffstetler, even himself – were so miniscule, so ordinary, so insignificant compared to other beings that existed in the world.  Things like _It_ , that _Thing_ beyond human comprehension that still haunted his dreams. Hoffstetler could never understand. 

“How do you think the world works, Doc?  Not the science of it, what all those books say, but how does civilization function?  There are things in this world that shouldn’t exist.  Things that are so powerful they could snuff us out in an instant.  Our survival depends upon finding a way to control them or destroy them.  Now, I was hoping the Asset would prove to be one of those things, but it’s just an animal.  Not even worth as much as you or me.  Only thing to do now is deconstruct it and move on to the next.  That’s how the world keeps spinning.” 

Hoffstetler’s shoulders slumped.  “It doesn’t have to be that way.”  

Hoyt clapped him on the shoulder.  “It’s always been that way, son.  Since the beginning of time until the end of days, it will continue to be that way.”

He left the scientist standing crestfallen and alone in the empty room.   

 

* * *

 1946 

Hoyt had no recollection of how he got back to the village.  He remembered standing in a field of blood red poppies, the steeple of the church visible in the distance over the next hill.  The forest was behind him and he was supporting Ross, who was leaning on him heavily to keep the weight off his ruined leg.  Ross’s eyes were glazed and he was mumbling in Hoyt’s ear in a language that was neither English nor German nor entirely human. 

Hoyt remembered MPs rushing towards him before the world faded to black.   

He made up a story about an ambush, a firefight and a valiant escape.  He said nothing about the creature in the lake.  No one questioned it, and the bodies of the rescue teams were recovered several days later.  It was as though a spell had been lifted, and the lake was now just another ordinary place.  They called him a hero and gave him a medal.   When Hoyt returned to the village several years later and took a trip to the lake, he could see nothing but pristine water and a tranquil forest.  No sign of the _Thing_ that lies below the water.  

Whatever he saw at the lake, whatever had whispered in his ear…that was true power.  No mortal man or nation on Earth could stand against it. 

And he was going to spend the rest of his life trying to find it. 


End file.
